As China's economy has taken off, images of the country have become dominated by skylines littered with cranes and glittering glass facades that bespeak a country that has arrived on the world stage -- and wants its competitors to know it as well. But China's rise has also been accompanied by a revolution in the private lives of Chinese citizens, and it hasn't always been smooth. For some, rapid economic growth has meant a ticket out of the countryside to one of China's manufacturing centers in cities like Shenzhen, Chongqing, and Tianjin. Life in one of these booming cities may well be tough, but rising wages have allowed ordinary Chinese to improve their living standards and those of their families in the villages they left behind. For others, China's rise has simply meant money -- and lots of it. Although still, by almost any definition, a communist country, China's growth has also given rise to a vastly unequal country, and its economic gains over the last three decades have been far from evenly distributed. Instead they have gone to the already wealthy and the wily, the well-connected, and, sometimes, the visionary. But today, as China's growth slows and a Internet-fueled animus takes root at the excesses of wealthy princelings and the entitled wealthy, the first sprouts of a new backlash again these nouveau riche may have already begun. Meet China's 1 percent.

Wu Xie'en, party secretary

Wu Xie'en is the Communist Party secretary and village chief of Huaxi, the richest village in China. He and his family have nearly absolute power in this model town. They are said to rule their people much like the ancient emperors did. Known as the "No. 1 village under the sky," Huaxi, in Jiangsu province, features replicas of the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Square, the Arc de Triomphe, and the U.S. Capitol.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

Yin Mingshan, chairman and founder of Lifan Group, car and motorcycle manufacturer

Yin Mingshan is the chairman and founder of the Lifan Group, an automobile and motorcycle producer in the megacity of Chongqing. Its vehicles are produced mainly for the Chinese market and are affordable for many of the country's new middle class. His company is highly successful, and Yin is one of the richest people in China. 

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

 Chen Jun or Kirk Chen, general manager, Nine Dragons Admirals Yacht Club

Kirk Chen belongs to the family that owns the luxurious Nine Dragons Estate, one of the Shanghai area's most exclusive country clubs, in Pinghu, Zhejiang. The estate includes a 27-hole golf course, a polo club, and an extraordinary marina. He is the general manager of the marina and yacht club. He loves to show off his Lamborghini sports car, parked here on the club terrace at the waterfront. China has in recent years seen a boom in horse imports to satisfy increasing demand for polo and dressage horses, which has caught the attention of European horse breeders. "Our dream is to change their Ferraris for horses," Nuria Mercader, the Asian marketing manager for the Spanish horse breeder Caballos Llargués told the Wall Street Journal.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

Jin Yu Xi or Yue-Sai Kan, television producer and host, author, and entrepreneur

Yue-Sai Kan is a big celebrity in China. People magazine once wrote that she is the most famous Chinese woman alive. She is a TV producer and host in Shanghai. She has written four books, and she founded the first major cosmetic line in China in 1989. Her line has since been sold to L'Oréal, but she still holds a controlling interest in it and remains its public face. But in a sign of China's arrival, the turn toward beautification has not been limited to makeup: Chinese women are now increasingly pursuing cosmetic surgery, with China now ranking third behind the United States and Brazil in the number of operations performed.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

 Xia Yang, president and owner of Beijing Sunny Times Polo Club, entrepreneur

Xia Yang is the owner and president of the Beijing Sunny Times Polo Club. On his estate outside Beijing, dozens of horses live in state-of-the-art stables. There are even some real Argentine polo players among his many employees who look after the horses. Polo died out in China during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, but after watching Britain's Prince Charles play, Xia told the Telegraph he was determined to bring it back. "In the West, polo is said to be an aristocrats' sport.… We don't have aristocrats in China, but we do have a lot of people who have become very rich very quickly. I want to encourage them to behave like gentlemen, and playing polo is part of that."

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

 Wu Xiangbing, director of golf academy, Mission Hills Golf Club

Wu Xiangbing is the director of the golf academy of Guanlan's Mission Hills Golf Club, China's most prestigious golf club. He used to play professionally and is a four-time Chinese national golf champion. Golf has been booming as a sport in China in recent years, but the game is still in its infancy there. Estimates of how many golfers there are in China vary widely and range from 300,000 to 3 million. Either way, there's money to be made.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

Jason Fong, director of wealth management, UBS, Shanghai

Jason Fong is the director of the wealth management department of the Shanghai office of UBS. The number of rich Chinese is growing fast, and China has become an important market for the Swiss bank. Attracting banks like UBS to Shanghai is one part of the Chinese government's strategy to make the city into an international financial center, and by most measures it has come a long way. Twenty years ago, Shanghai had no stock exchange; now it rivals Hong Kong for regional supremacy.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

Ma Jing and Li Haifeng, owners of Penglai Eight Immortals business empire

Ma Jing, the daughter of a general, and her husband, Li Haifeng, are arguably the most powerful people in the city of Penglai and the owners of a business empire. They call themselves the "Magic Couple." Their latest project is building a luxury hotel complex in the style of an imperial palace. Ma describes her real estate holdings as China's answer to Versailles, the centerpiece of a business empire that Ma built together with her husband. Ma defied her father when she married Li and quit her job as a doctor in order to go into business with her husband; a restaurant was the first step in constructing their real estate empire.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

Li Xuebing or Bing Bing, director and owner of the Yan Club Arts Center

Bing Bing is director and owner of the Yan Club Arts Center. Her gallery is located in Beijing's famous 798 art district. Early on, she discovered the potential of Chinese art and opened one of the first galleries at 798. She is the daughter of an important general from Sichuan province. Ai Weiwei, the renowned dissident artist, resides just outside the district and along with Bing Bing helped generate interest in the area as an arts center. The district is primarily composed of former industrial buildings; the Yan Club Arts Center occupies a former factory cafeteria.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer

Liu Kai Mung, golf instructor, Asia Golf Club driving range

Liu Kai Mung is the sunny boy among the golf instructors of the Asia Golf Club driving range in Hong Kong. It is located in the middle of Kowloon, the most densely populated area in the world. Golf is a very prestigious sport for China's upper class. Hong Kong has become well-known for its über wealthy -- it has the world's highest housing costs, and those costs are only matched by its wealth gap, which is also the world's largest. Behind its glittering facades, Hong Kong is also home to one of the world's most infamous slums: a city of cages in which as many as 100,000 people live in wire mesh cubicles.

Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer